Current Projects
Conference: Death, Dying and Disposal (DDD9 and DDD10)
The ninth meeting of the Death Dying and Disposal Conference (DDD9) was hosted by the Centre at Durham September 9th - 12th 2009 with approximetaly 200 delegates, forty percent of them from outside the UK. The Book of Abstracts edited by Douglas J. Davies and James Jirtle is published as Volume 14 Supplement to the journal Mortality September 2009. A book of selected papers on the topic of Emotions, Death and Identity is to be published in 2011.
The Tenth DDD Conference was held in September 9th-11th 2011 at The Centre for Thanatology Radbout University Nijmegen. It included the showing of the film Earth to Earth: Natural Burial and The Church of England . Both of these spoke to the film which was given a second showing by popular request. Members of the Centre's Cremation in Scotland team (see below) also made a significant contribution to this conference by presenting a panel on this Leverhulme funded project.
Film
During late 2010 the Centre commissioned a film on its woodland burial project. Funded both by the Centre and Durham University's Wolfson Research Institute this film Earth to Earth: Natural Burial and The Church of England was made by a former Durham University graduate Sarah Thomas, now an ethnographic film-maker. This has been shown at a variety of public events, including the 2011 Open Day at Barton Glebe Woodland Burial site, with many of the people appearing in the film being present at the day. It has alos been selected for inclusion in a variety of film festivals including, for example, Turin and Cambridge, and has been shown at academic seminars in Helsinki and Nijmegen, as well as at training days for clergy at St George's House Windsor Castle and Cuddesdon Theological College.
Woodland Burial
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council's Religion and Society programme this Collaborative Doctoral Award focused on developments in woodland burial in general with a special focus of The Arbory Trust and its Barton Glebe site near Cambridgeshire. The Project ran for three years from October 2007 -2010 with Ms Hannah Rumble, B.A., M.A (Distinction) as the primary researcher. She successfully completed her doctoral examination in December 2010. Her thesis is accessible through Durham University Library.
Part of this research, along with furether research and analysis will be published in 2012 in a joint volume with Prof. Douglas Davies dealing with woodland burial and other aspects of contemporary funeral rites in Britain. For more information, email h.j.rumble@durham.ac.uk
See also the previous note on the DDD Conferences.
Cremation in Scotland
The Cremation in Scotland Project is now drawing to its close and a major book on the material is currently being preapred for publication. Members of the project team have given numerous papers in UK, France, and Romania over the last year, they also made a significant contribution to the DDD10 Conference at Nijmegen.Funded by the Leverhulme Trust this three year project (2008-2011) is strongly interdisciplinary. Led by Professor Davies and Prof. Hilary Grainger (University of the Arts, London) the research team includes the Revd Dr Peter Jupp and Mr. Stephen White as Research Fellows and Mr Gordon Raeburn who is working for his doctorate. Together the team has been exploring the social and religious history of Scotland as the medium within which cremation emerged. Prof. Grainger has a special interest in the architectural history of Scotland's crematoria, Mr White in legal aspects of cremation and burial, Mr Raeburn in the theology of death in Scotland at and after the Reformation, Dr Jupp in the historical dynamics of the process of funerary change, and Prof Davies in its ritual and symbolic aspects and in the interdisciplinary nature of the project itself.
Death and British Funerals
Funded by the ecumenical, Churches Group for Funerals, Profs Douglas Davies and Prof. Tony Walter (of Bath University's Centre for Death and Society CDAS) completed and presented to that Group in summer 2008 a preliminary report on contemporary aspects of death and funerary rites in England and Wales.
Research leave
In summer term 2011 Prof. Davies was given research leave held as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Collegium Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki. There he continued work on the joint volume with Dr Hannah Rumbe on woodland burial and contemporary funeral rites in the UK, to be published by Continuum in 2012. He took part in a variety of research seminars and also showed the film Earth to Earth: Woodland Burial and The Church of England to the Scandinavian Thanatological Association, Helsinki University's Department of Anthropology, and to a local Helsinki circle of interested parties. He was able to meet leading figures in Finland's palliative care world. In November 2011 Prof davies will return to give a plenary lecture at a conference hosted by the Collegium as part of its ongoing programme on death studies.
Durham Catholic Theology Research Seminar
Seminars are usually held on Thursday at 17:15 (check the details for venue), but you should check the seminar details for exceptions. Contact m.j.p.pound@durham.ac.uk for more information about this seminar series.
Japanese Cripto-Catholicism
11 June 2013 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage Seminar Room
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'Your workbench is your altar' - Taking the Eucharist to Work
28 May 2013 17:15 in TBA
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Kierkegaard, Aquinas, and an Italian Adventure
14 May 2013 17:15 in
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Christian Credibility in Maurice Blondel
23 April 2013 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage Seminar Room
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Safeguarding, Theology, and the Church's Magisterium
13 March 2013 17:15 in TBA
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The Nature and Purpose of Legal Power in the Church
26 February 2013 17:15 in St. Cuthbert's Catholic Chaplaincy
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The Dark Night of the Church: St. John of the Cross in Dialogue with Voices from Ireland
15 January 2013 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage Seminar Room
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Evil, Privation, Depression and Dread: What Evil Isn't
11 December 2012 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage
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Evangelisation in a Secular and Religiously Pluralist Society
27 November 2012 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage Seminar Room
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Aquinas and Emotion’
20 November 2012 00:05 in St Cuthbert’s Catholic Chaplaincy
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'The Uses of Scripture in Catholic Prayer, Practice and Theology: A Study Day for Clergy, Laity, and Students'
10 March 2012 17:15 in Dept. of Theology and Religion, Palace Green
Joint with the Newman Association and the Diocese of
Hexam and Newcastle.
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'Receptive Ecumenism and Canonical Structures: Possibilities for a Constructive Interaction'
1 March 2012 18:30 in St Cuthbert's Catholic Chaplaincy
St Cuthbert's Lecture
Preceded by a PG Colloquium on 'Issues in Contemporary Catholicism'.
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'The Relationship of Theology to Classics'
9 February 2012 17:15 in St Cuthbert's Catholic Chaplaincy
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'Edmund Burke and Natural Law— “the immutable, pre-existent law”'
19 January 2012 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage
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'The Politics of Asylum: Catholic Perspectives'
1 December 2011 17:15 in St Cuthbert's Catholic Chaplaincy
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'Vatican II: Newman's Council?'
3 November 2011 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage
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Talking about God: Aquinas on the Logic of the 'Subject Term' in Theological Statements
23 June 2011 17:15 in
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Faith, Development and the Historical Theologian
9 June 2011 17:15 in Dun Cow Cottage
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The Importance of a Robust Theology of Christs Descent into Hell
12 May 2011 17:15 in Catholic Chaplaincy, St Cuthberts, Old Elvet
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St Cuthbert's Lecture: Title TBC
2 March 2010 17:15 in St Cuthbert's (Chapel)
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John Henry Newman and the Crises of Capitalism
23 February 2010 17:15 in Cosins Library
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Jesus Reinvented: Aesthetic and Theological Issues in the Gospel Films
9 February 2010 17:15 in St. Cuthbert's/Catholic Chaplaincy
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TBA
8 December 2009 17:15 in St. Chad's College
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Purity and Danger: Catholics and Contraception
3 November 2009 17:15 in Dunn Cow Cottage
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Reading the Gospel of Matthew Ecologically: Exploring a Test Case
15 October 2009 17:15 in Catholic Chaplaincy, St. Cuthberts
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Sisters of Sinai
14 May 2009 17:00 in PG 20 (Pemberton Rooms)
Or how two Victorian ladies, rich and eccentric, made a priceless find at St. Catherine's monastery in the Sinai, aged over 50, and rediscovered themselves as scholars of Syriac and Arabic Christian Manuscripts
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Orthodoxy and the Summa
16 December 2008 17:15 in
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The Body of Glory and the Body in Degradation in Catholic Thought
18 November 2008 17:15 in
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Everything you needed to know about Zizek but were too afraid to ask a theologian
10 June 2008 17:00 in Presbytery, St Cuthbert’s RC Church, Old Elvet
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Blaise Pascal and the Secular Challenge
13 May 2008 17:00 in St Chad’s College SCR (TBC)
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Spirituality and Advances in Modern Psychology
22 April 2008 17:00 in St Chad’s College SCR (TBC)
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1944 and all that: The Structures and Provisions of Catholic Schooling
11 March 2008 17:00 in Presbytery, St Cuthbert’s RC Church, Old Elvet
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Language, Thought and Ineffability: Anselm’s Proslogion as Religious Experience Self-help Manual
12 February 2008 17:00 in St Chad’s College SCR
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A Response to the Congregation’s ‘Notification’ regarding Jon Sobrino’s work on Christology
22 January 2008 17:00 in St Chad’s College SCR
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Miracles and the Laws of Nature
6 December 2007 17:00 in St Chad’s Chapel
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The Theological Teaching of John Paul II: Some New Directions
22 November 2007 17:00 in Presbytery, St Cuthbert’s RC Church, Old Elvet
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Saints, Solace and the Suffering God
11 October 2007 17:00 in St Chad's College SCR
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Antonio Rosmini on the Election of Bishops by Clergy and Laity
10 May 2007 17:00 in The Presbytery, St Cuthbert’s RC Church, Old Elvet, Durham
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Can We Talk of a Catholic Practical Theology?
15 March 2007 17:00 in TBC
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Ritual, Institution, Identity: First Communion
15 February 2007 17:00 in TBC
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